Core
by sinemoras09
Summary: The patient wakes. Johan in the ICU. Johan, others. Dark. Horror. Gen. Series spoilers.


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_And the eyes of them both were opened... - Genesis 3:7_

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"Bed 10 is an easy one. He's a twenty-two year-old male, status post-cranial gunshot wound with evac. Brainstem function's intact and his vitals are stable. We were able to extubate him, but he's not waking up."

"What's his GCS?"

"3," the dayshift resident says. He folds his sign-out paper and hands it to the overnight resident, rising. "Everyone's all tucked in. Hopefully it'll be a good night for you."

"Hopefully," the nightshift resident says. She smiles and stands, tucking the sign-out into her back pocket. "I'm presenting at journal club tomorrow. I really hope I get to sleep."

"Hopefully," the dayshift resident says, and he hands her his pager.

xXx

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Weeknight call at the university ICU is a simple one, only eighteen patients on the census, half of which are neuro cases. The septic patients, the one the resident manages directly, are all on the upswing and getting better. "All tucked in," the dayshift resident had said. The nightshift resident glances at her pager once before sitting down to read her journal articles.

The night passes. The nurses wave and offer her doughnuts at the nurses station. It's raining outside and the ER is quiet: no admissions. "No one's coding tonight," one of the nurses says, and she grins, offering a doughnut. "Everyone's really friggin stable. You're a total white cloud."

"Thank god," the resident says, and she sits and keeps reading her journal articles.

It's dark in the call room when the resident finally lays down to sleep, silently thankful for the quiet night. The wind blows, and what sounds like shutters slams against the walls of the hospital.

The resident checks her pager. 2 AM. She can't sleep, so she decides to make her rounds early. She stands, pulling on her white coat and grabbing her stethoscope.

The lights in the unit are dimmed, and the nurses are chatting quietly among themselves, perusing magazines and drinking coffee. The resident smiles and waves and goes from room to room, checking the drips on the patients and the settings on the ventilators.

Bed 10 is in the furthest corner of the unit, almost in an entirely separate hallway. The resident walks and the hallway seems eerily quiet; there are no nurses here. The resident rubs her eyes and walks in, pulling out her census to remind herself.

The room is dark, but the resident doesn't bother turning on the light, instead fumbling in her pocket for a penlight and clicking it on.

She pulls back his eyelids and shines a light. The pupils minimally constrict. She frowns and checks the other eye. Minimal constriction. Pulling out her stethoscope, she bends to listen to his heart and lungs.

_"What are you going to do with him?" she asked. The dayshift resident shook his head._

"Apparently it's a police case," the dayshift resident said. "I don't know the details but there's some issues with family involved."

She marks his vitals on her census and turns, walking out of the room. Pressure's stable. Heartrate's normal. They might need to contact the next of kin for a feeding tube.

A scream. She startles and turns. Bed 10. She runs back into the room.

She throws on the lights. Bed 10 is lying on the bed, motionless. The rain knocks branches into the window.

It takes a moment for her to get her bearings, but there's no one around her. The hall is silent. There aren't even any psychiatric patients around.

The resident takes a breath. "Shit," she says. She tucks her census back in and turns off the light.

"Excuse me," someone says, and the resident turns.

Bed 10 is sitting upright, staring right at her.

xXx

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"Where am I?" Bed 10 says. The resident listens to his heart and lungs, trying to keep her hands from shaking.

"The hospital," the resident says. "You were shot and you had brain surgery. You weren't waking up." She puts her stethoscope around her neck, standing in front of him.

"Squeeze your eyes," the resident says. "Smile for me. Stick out your tongue."

Bed 10 stares at her. "I'm sorry," the resident says. "I'm testing your cranial nerves. You've been in a coma for awhile."

She examines him, but he doesn't have reflexes. The resident frowns, using the bell of her stethoscope to tap at his knees and arms. "I'm probably not hitting the right spot," the resident says. "Relax a bit. Let me try."

The patient doesn't move.

It unnerves her, the way he stares at her without blinking. Probably getting his bearings, she watches as his eyes slowly trace a line from object to object, as if silently taking inventory of the things in the room.

"Do you have anyone?" she says, and the patient's gaze snaps back, looking at her. "Do you have anyone you'd like me to call?"

"I used to," the patient says. "An older couple. They were kind to me.

I made them go away."

"What do you mean?" the resident says. The patient stares at her.

"They found out about my sister," the patient says.

The patient's eyes get larger, staring into hers.

"Do you know about my sister?" the patient says.

xXx

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Thunder. Lightning lights up the corners of the room.

"I knew a man, once. An alcoholic cop. I saw him, sitting at a bar, looking at his drink. He was weak," the patient says, and his eyes trail down her shoulder, past her scrub shirt and to the spot by her wrist and arm.

"I can see you are weak as well."

The resident stares. The scar on her wrist, so light now it blends in, like a small skin fold on the underside of her wrist, no one ever noticed. The patient stares at her, pale eyes probing silently.

She covers her wrist with her hand.

"I need to call the attending," the resident says. "Just let me get your nurse, okay?"

"You were not wrong the first time," the patient says. He looks at her, then at her scar, harsh slants of rain battering against the window.

"If you were to try again, you would not be wrong."

xXx

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She bolts out of the room. Lurching forward, the darkness like a choke-hold crushing her throat.

"Sarah!" the resident says. She calls out for the nurse, afraid. "Sarah, I need help. Bed 10 is awake-"

"Just a second," the nurse says, and she sets down her coffee by the coffee maker.

"He's awake," the resident says. She moves swiftly down the hallway, gripping the census in her hands. "He's awake and he's scaring me. We can't leave him alone-"

They round a corner, and the resident stops.

The patient is lying in the bed.

"What...?" The resident stares. The nurse shakes her head and flips on her penlight, pulling back his eyes.

"No blink to threat. No reflex," the nurse says. She shuts off her light. "Doc you should probably get some sleep."

"But I saw him," the resident says. "He talked to me. He-" the resident turns.

The patient is sitting upright, staring at her. Lightning flashes, and the patient slowly smiles.

The resident shrieks. The nurse runs back into the room.

xXx

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The dayshift resident shakes his head with disbelief.

"I can't believe she wigged out like that," he said. "She's been under a lot of stress. But to call in the back-up resident? Seriously?"

"She was really out of it," the nightshift nurse says. The resident flips through the flowsheet, frowning.

"By the way, someone is visiting today. The neurosurgeon from Japan," the dayshift resident says, and he flips the chart shut.

"He's the one who performed the operation. I'd be interested in hearing what he has to say."

"Me too," the nurse says, and she turns, bending over the head of the bed and daubing on lacrilube on the patient's eyes.

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><p><em>Notes: "GCS" refers to the galsgow coma scale, which grades how bad someone's coma is; to extubate someone means to disconnect them from the breathing machine, and lacrilube is the stuff you put on a patient's eyeballs to keep them from drying out. Hopefully the med jargon wasn't too bad, lol :x<em>

**A/N: so I was thinking how hilarious it would be, if Johan were actually just faking a coma and messing with everyone in the hospital staff. Like, in _Arrested Development_ were Buster fakes a coma and doesn't move when dental students practice root canals on him, lol. XD**


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